Starting in 2007, an informal group of friends began playing an outdoor adventure game called Adventure: Kokopelli. The name was not adopted until 2009, when Suzie Davidson chose the theme of Kokopelli for that year. The game of Kokopelli was inspired by CBS's SURVIVOR, but devising structures, challenges, and "twists" not associated from the show. The original motto: OutThink, OutFink, OutDrink was adapted from the show's motto.

Adventure: Kokopelli 2009

The game follows a similar structure year by year, but is always re-adapted by the creative planners. The creative planners have shifted over the years. During the first two years, the event was run in a fashion where the winner of the game would host the following year. This did not provide for continuity and unfortunately had to be disbanded.

The first year, 2007, was planned by Suzie Davidson. Kirk Carlson won the first year in a final head-to-head challenge against Angie Cremeans, and by the informal "rules" of the game; he was to lead hosting the event the following year.

Kirk Carlson hosted 2008 and used pirates and bootlegging as the theme to the adventure weekend. Since bootlegging was a theme, players bought clues to hidden immunity totems by finding or winning treasure during reward challenges. This structure turned out to be popular, and it later became the design around the event Adventure: GOLD RU$H. Also, this year was the first to use a final vote to determine the winner of the game. To everyone's surprise, the vote resulted in a 5--5 tie between Suzie Davidson and Sara Sanders. To resolve this, like the year before, a final challenge was used to determine that the winner of the game was Suzie. Because of this outcome, each year it is unknown to the players at the onset of the game what will occur during the Finals. Each year has gone to particular lengths to avoid revealing the finale, but it always involves all the "Sacrificed" players in some way.

By nature of the informal rules, Suzie Davidson agreed to act as planner and hostess the following year. Suzie Davidson would coin the term "Kokopelli" in 2009. The name was then retrograded to apply to both prior iterations, though many informally call it "Adventure Weekend." The Twists in 2009 included an eXile for certain players which included hidden immunity totems, three tribes at the beginning, and a late merge at the Final 5. This was the first year where an entire team, the Black Team, was wiped out and the last two remaining players were absorbed into the other tribes. Surprisingly, these two players, Trevor Davidson and Jay Fortier, would be in the Final 3. Neither would claim vistory, instead Johnny Sobatta would win the final jury vote against Trevor 9-6, also due to the allowance of two proxy votes and one which was uncounted due to a late text message response. Jonny agreed that by the informal rules, he would plan the event. A disagreement around proxy voting resulted in this rule to be changed in subsequent years. Now players who leave early, that did not quit, list the names of all the players from who they would like to win to who they would least like to win. This "BootList" as it is called, is used at the Final Tribal Sacrifice at the discretion of the hosts.

2009-2010 saw an unexpected increase in popularity and the Adventure: GOLD RU$H event was heralded a complete success. An advisory board was created to see if builing an Adventure! brand was possible. Nick Weidner created some logos for Adventure around this time. The advisory board worked together for about a year, and a new creative personell emerged again.

In 2010, Johnny felt he could nolonger host the event, so Kirk and Rachel Carlson planned out an event. 2010 used the theme of Temptations and was the first year to drastically change the expected rules of the game. The Twists included that if you had individual immunity you could not vote, each Tribal Sacrifice included a Temptation from Kokopelli which asked the player not to vote and instead take a prize for themself. Another twist included the finale, because of the ruling, at the Final 3, the player with immunity could not vote, which resulted in a tie vote by the two players without immunity voting for each other. To rectify this, they had the Ghost Jury vote for who they though earned the chance to play in the final challenge against Les Done. Tyler won the vote overwhelmingly against Tim Nagey, but lost the Past Challenge Finale Relay at the last stage making Les Done the winner.

In 2011, Rebecca Chatfield entered into the creative planning with Rachel Carlson and Ken Johnson. The Twists this year included the first Tribal Sacrifice late during the second night when everyone had gotten back to camp. It was not for each tribe, for everyone voted as one tribe to remove the first player of the game: Candice. THe other twists was that there was only one hidden totem that granted immunity and this yuear there were 4 other hidden totems, entitled the "Amulets of Powers," which granted different abilities to the players. Tim Roderer and Stefanie Roderer beat Kirk Carlson in the Final Challenge Relay, but, in the end, Tim Roderer won the game by 1 jury vote.

The 2012 game was devised by Rebecca Chatfield, Kirk Carlson, and Dustyn Napper. They were assisted in faciliation by Tim Roderer. 2012 was the biggest Adventure with 20 players. The game was advertised as Veterans (returning players) versus Rookies (new players). The structure proved to be a gigantic success with the players overall. The major twist this year was called the Revenant Twist. Each day at a predetermined time, an envelope was opened which revealed that the voted out players would try to steal immunity from the teams/players still in the game. If the ghosts (revenants) won the challenge, they would come back into the game at Tribal Sacrifice with immunity. Jim Stange and Abbey Medema returned in the first challenge, and Tim O. in the second. While Tyler Wait won the opporutnity to return to the finals as a ghost, he gave his shot to Stefanie Roderer, but she did not complete the Past Challenge Finale Relay in time. In the end, Katie Atto and Jake Valentine squared off against the Ghost Jury with Katie Atto taking home the title of Great Warrior.

2013 Logo

2013 is expected to be planned by Dustyn Napper and Nicole Rypma with feedback from Rachel Carlson, Suzie Davidson and some artistic design by Abbey Medema. The event will be facilitated by Dustyn Napper, Nicole Rypma, and Stefanie Roderer. The logo was unveiled at the end of 2012 and includes not only the image of Kokopelli, but the image of Coyote as well. This presumes that the story of the Coyote from 2012 will be continued on and hints that, once again, players will be returning to the game after elimination.

The Game of Kokopelli is divided between 5 distinct phases: PreGame, Team Phase, Sacrifice Phase, Individual Phase, and EndGame.

Phase

Overview

PREGAME:

In this phase, which normally takes place on the first night of the event, the players will be divided in some way into teams. Historically, this has been a random selection of a rock, schoolyard pick draft, or, as of 2012, reveal of the pretermined division of teams. There are occasionally reward challenges or the Adventure Auction that go along with this phase, but are not guaranteed to be a part of it.

TEAM PHASE:

This begins the reward and or elimination component of the game. Teams will compete in challenges to win a Team Immunity Totem. The team(s) that does not win a Totem will attend the Altar where they will sacrifice a player by voting off at least one member of their team. The player who receives the most votes will be "sacrificed." After the elimination, teams will begin the next challenge for another shot at winning the immunity totem. There may be predetermined twists where teams are rearranged. (If at any point a team loses so much where the remaining members equal the number of other teams in the game, that tribe is dissolved and absorbed into the other tribes. This has only happened once.)

SACRIFICE PHASE:

This is the phase that denotes the end of a round. After a team or individual wins immunity, players will attend the ritual of sacrifice, where Kokopelli will eliminate one or more players from the game. The game of Kokopelli uses pluralist voting as the sole elimination method and players will vote using secret ballot. If a player has individual immunity, their name may not be written down. Prior to the vote, a player may give away his individual immunity necklace or choose not to wear it, but individual immunity is only good at the next sacrifice that player would attend. In other words, they may not "save their necklace for later." A player may not give the necklace to a player on another tribe. If the votes tie, secret rules will be released into the game about how the tiebreaker will be settled.

INDIVIDUAL PHASE:

At a predetermined time, teams will merge to form one tribe and compete individually against the other players. At this juncture, players will be playing for the Individual Immunity Totem. Once a player wins immunity, all players will attend the Altar and eliminate at least one player from the game.

ENDGAME:

Everyone is involved in the endgame phase. In most seasons, the players who were eliminated formed a jury, but the jury has functioned in different ways over the years. At a predetermined time (typically either the third morning or third evening), the players enter into the finals of the game. During this final phase, one player will outmaneuver the other finalists and become the final player standing, also known as the Great Warrior.

Individual Immunity Totems are most often rewarded after the point in the game where the remaining players on all tribes are merged into one team. At this juncture, players play challenges only to for IITs. Seldomly, more than one IIT has been rewarded in one challenge.

At the elimination phase, players who have IITs cannot have their name written down and therefore cannot be eliminated. All IITs are used at the subsequent Tribal Sacrifice after it was earned. A player may give an IIT away at any point, but not after the votes have been cast, and they may not give it to a player on another team.
IFor more information and player stats, see Individual Immunity Totems.

These are hidden items that allow the person who found it to have immunity or an additional power/ability at the Altar. Over six years, 25 objects have been hidden and 15 have been located. The exact instructions on how to play it is found with the totem. For more information and history, see Hidden Totems.

Each year, the hosts devise rules which clarify how the game moves on in the event of a tie. These rules are always kept secret from the players until a tie vote occurs.

Year

Tie Breaker Rule

2007

Players who were tied competed in a duel to see who was eliminated.

2008

Players who were tied competed in a duel to see who was eliminated.

2009

Players who were tied competed in a fire-making challenge.

2010

In the event of a tie, players revoted for the names currently in the tie. In the event of a second tie, players tied would compete in a duel.

2011

In the event of a tie, past votes were counted for each player, resulting in the player with the most past votes eliminated.

2012

In the event of a tie, players revoted for the names currently in the tie. In the case of a second tie, the players who were just tied both cast a vote (but not for each other). If they voted for the same person, that person was eliminated; otherwise, they would both be eliminated.

Only 3 players have reached the final 4 twice: Trevor, Kirk and Tyler. Tyler nearly made it to the Final 4 a third time in 2012, but instead gave his shot at returning to Stef.

Each player who has won three individual immunity totems has won them in a single season.

Only 5 players have ever been voted out and returned to the game in Kokopelli: Dave and Alex in 2008, and Tim O., Jim, and Abbey in 2012.

Tim and Stef are the only couple to make a Final 2 together.

Kenneth Johnson has played four times, more than any other player. Three time players include Trevor Davidson, Kirk Carlson, and Tyler Wait.

During Kokopelli 2010, Tyler Wait participated in 26 challenges, making him the player who has played in more challenges in one game than any other player. He was the only player to play in both endurance challenges and his accumulated time was over 3 hours, making him the player who has spent the most time in endurance challenges, but also has accumulated the most playing time.